Pin A Win Or A Fail
by h0bbes
Summary: She's very pretty when she plays coy, he thinks.


She's very pretty when she plays coy, he thinks. On a normal day Helen Magnus is frustratingly gorgeous, infuriatingly beautiful, but not pretty. Pretty, he thinks, is a word saved for little girls and women with a youthful face and while Helen is most certainly no girl he can see the light in her eyes that is a faint echo of their glimmer of youth that he sometimes longed for as much as anyone wishes they could be young again. He may be vampire, the last of a glorious race but to her he doesn't think he'd be anything more than human. And human is what he gives her, cracking a grin that made her smirk back and hide it behind her glass as she turned to look out the window and watch the sunrise creeping over Old City. They sit in silence for a while, enjoying each other's company over a bottle of good wine and he muses as to wherein perhaps she has hidden her own private stores.

She likes the quiet that comes just before dawn, where for just a moment everything draws grey and silent and there is a slight haze of peace that crosses paths with every floral, fauna, and combination there in. Or so she claimed. He could be wrong, the two of them sitting on wobbling roof shingles at an absurd time of morning. He'd had a packet of crumbs in his pocket, offering it shyly to her as she laughed. He has no breadcrumbs now, nothing more to offer than himself. She takes it either way because after all; they're friends. She'd take him if he'd shown up destitute, half dead, and with those bureaucratic asses hot on their trail. Helen Magnus begrudges and huffs and sometimes barks, but in the end she'd never turn any of them away. She's much too good for that; one of these days she will save them was something she'd been telling herself for well over a hundred years and by now she was bound to believe it.

Helen has caught him staring as she looks up swirls the dregs of her glass around. "What?"

"Just admiring your everlasting radiance."

Her chuckle of disbelief is refreshing as she shakes her head. The light leaves, and she doesn't quite meet his eyes; her wineglass has become infintely fascinating to her and it's a clear sign she's hiding something. Nikola wonders if the Wonder Protege has noticed this. If he didn't the over-gelled preteen should be fired. "I am not so radiant."

"That doesn't matter to me." he sets his glass down to reach for the second bottle, of which there is pitifully little left. Before he can pour her more however she stops with her fingers wrapped around his wrist. "I really shouldn't. It's early. And I'm tired."

"The great Helen Magnus, admitting defeat?" he teases, withdrawing to drink from it directly. He isn't sure to which she is wrinkling her nose at but for a moment she moves from pretty to cute and she pouts her lip just so that he thinks that he'd very much like to kiss it. "I was woken up by a roaming spider, traversed cyberspace, killed, and brought back again all in the name of Adam Worth. I think I deserve a little beauty rest, at least." She sighs a little afterwards, tucking her hands into her lap. "I'm getting too old for this."

It's so quiet he almost misses it entirely. Something else has taken a peek from the other side of her eye, something he could almost take for guilt. Regret, maybe? How unlike her. They all had regrets, all of them. Between the two of them they just had more time to collect than most. His smile turns from cavalier to reassuring, a small warmth because he can't think of anything to say that would make anything better. "I should go. I have other things I have to do before I can

actually go back to bed."

By which of course she means William. Heinrich had been easy enough to be rid of, a smile and loving pat from Magnus and he was off, back to dreamland. Sasquatch had given him a dirty look and followed behind without another word. But dear, dear Wilhelm followed Helen around like an angry, lost puppy and she just fed into his little delusion. Everyone deserved to be worshipped once in a while, but the last person he'd ever want doing so was Will. Maybe not last. But close. He doubts Helen would put up with it for long either, if she didn't seem to reciprocate feelings on some level. Ugh. Standards were slipping.

He offers to walk her. "I'm not going to sleep with you, Nikola." is her response, standing and running her palms down her pants. She wobbles just a little, before she regains full control of her ankles; a little too much wine, a little too less sleep. "Nice try."

"Do I at least get a goodnight kiss? I did save your life after all."

"Incorrigible." she shakes her head and chuckles. "That was Henry and Will, you were in there right beside me the entire time." The smirk that's taken over those lips falters just as her legs do. He pouts. "And what a glorious time that was, too."

"Alright then." she says, though and it catches him off guard.

"What?"

"Do you or do you not want a kiss, Nikola?"

He is up before she can finish her sentence, handle of the wine bottle gripped firmly in one palm. Self control, man. It's all about self control. He must be doing something because the look she is giving him is absolutely comical, and she reaches up one hand to stroke lightly against the hair by his ear. "Thank you for going with me." she says.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

She leans in and kisses his smirk, closed lips in a manner that could be deemed chaste. But he damn well died for her today, and he's feeling particularly brave so he presses forward. She doesn't pull away. He opens his mouth, probing and she makes a quiet noise of compliance. She touches her tongue against his once before pulling away, dazed and smiling. "Happy?"

"Are you absolutely positive you don't need an escort to bed?"

"Goodnight, Nikola."

He watches her leave, closing the door quietly behind her, the wine bottle becoming warm and slippery in his grasp. In the end he watches the sun come up over Old City alone, finishing off the wine in a way that should never, ever be repeated again. It's a good year for the Bordeaux, and anything is better than that poisonous bile she made them drink before hand. The very, very last of the bottle is got and he holds it up to the newly arisen sun to peek through the darkly tinted class. Perhaps one of his favorites yet. '85 Bordeaux with just a hint of Helen Magnus.

He wonders what young William would have to say about that.


End file.
